The Battle of Olustee Photos taken by Terry Walker in Olustee, Florida. I was first made aware of this battlefield while traveling to Lake City, Florida as a child (age 14) to the Veterans Hospital with my Great Uncle Charlie White and Grandfather Emanuel Walker to visit my Great Uncle Melrose Leonard White (WW2) who would pass away within 30 days from this visit (Jan 1975), the year was in Dec1974. When I asked what was it and why The Battle of Olustee or Battle of Ocean Pond was fought in Baker County, Florida on February 20, 1864, during the American Civil War. It was the largest battle fought in Florida during the war. In February 1864, Major General Quincy A. Gillmore, commander of the Unions Department of the South at Hilton Head, South Carolina, ordered an expedition into Florida to secure Union enclaves, sever Confederate supply routes (especially for beef and salt), and recruit black soldiers. Brigadier General Truman Seymour, in command of the expedition, landed troops at Jacksonville, in an area already seized by the Union in March 1862. Seymours forces then made several raids into northeast and north-central Florida. During these raids he met little resistance, seized several Confederate camps, captured small bands of troops and artillery pieces, liberated slaves, etc. However, Seymour was under orders from Gillmore not to advance deep into the state. Seymours preparations at Hilton Head had concerned the Confederate command in the key port city of Charleston, South Carolina. General P. G. T. Beauregard, correctly guessing Seymours objective was Florida, felt these Union actions posed enough of a threat for him to detach reinforcements under Georgian Alfred H. Colquitt to bolster Floridas defenses and stop Seymour. Colquitt arrived in time to reinforce Florida troops under the command of Brigadier General Joseph Finnegan. As Colquitts troops began arriving, Seymour, without Gillmores knowledge, began a new drive across north Florida with the capture of Tallahassee as a possible objective (Tallahassee, Florida was the only Confederate capital city that was not capture during the conflict). Following the Florida, Atlantic and Gulf Central Railroad, Seymour led his 5,500 men in the direction of Lake City (My Great-Great-Great-Grandparents were enslaves in the area). At approximately 2:30 in the afternoon of February 20, the Union force approached General Finnegans 5,000 Confederates entrenched near Olustee Station. Finnegan sent out an infantry brigade to meet Seymours advance units and lure them into the Confederate entrenchments, but this plan went awry. The opposing forces met at Ocean Pond and the battle began. Seymour made the mistake of assuming that he was once again facing Florida militia units that he had previously routed with ease and committed his troops piecemeal into the battle. Union casualties were 203 killed, 1,152 wounded, and 506 missing, a total of 1,861 men—about 34 percent. Confederate losses were lower: 93 killed, 847 wounded, and 6 missing, a total of 946 casualties in all—but still about 19 percent. Union forces also lost six artillery pieces and 39 horses that were captured. The ratio of Union casualties to the number of troops involved made this the second bloodiest battle of the War for the Union, with 265 casualties per 1,000 troops. The Union losses caused Northern authorities to question the necessity of further Union involvement in the militarily insignificant state of Florida. There is evidence from Confederate memoirs and letters that Confederate troops murdered wounded and captured African-American Union soldiers (these wounded and captured African-American Union soldiers were indeed executed and buried shallow graves). This lead President Lincoln threatening that the same practice would happen for any and all Confederate forces captured, this practice by Confederates the stopped. After the smoke had cleared and the dead were buried, the armies marched away to fight in other battles. The battle scared trees were all that remained in silent testimony of the fury and carnage of the battle of Olustee. The battlefield remained silent except for an occasional traveler passing the area. In May of 1866, a little over two years after the battle, a Lieutenant Frederick E. Grossman of the 7th U.S. infantry was ordered to proceed to the Olustee battlefield and determine the whereabouts and condition of the Union graves on the battlefield. He was horrified at what he found. He found that the Union dead had been buried in shallow graves near where they had fallen, some times several in one grave. Within a few weeks after the battle the graves had been disinterred by the wild hogs in the area and the bones scattered all over the battlefield. Lieutenant Grossman and his command covered almost 2 square miles of the battlefield collecting all the bones of the fallen Yankees that he could find. Two wagons were filled with the remains and buried in a mass grave near the railroad. There he erected a wooden monument, 12 feet high and surrounded with a wooden fence 27 feet long and 18 feet wide. On the monument were the following carved inscriptions Southside: To the memory of the officers and soldiers of the United States Army who fell in the Battle of Olustee, February 20, 1864 West side: Our Country North side: May the Living Profit by the Example of the Dead East side: Unity and Peace Lieutenant Grossman also reported that the Confederate dead were principally buried on the south side of the railroad west of the battlefield and were in perfect condition. The following years the monument would fall into a state of disrepair. The last recorded mention of it was in the fall of 1873 when Olustee veteran Loomis Langdon of the 1st U.S. Artillery reported seeing it from the platform of a passing train. He reported that all that could be seen were two sides of a weather stained and broken down fence. Soon, like the fate of the battlefield, the dead were also forgotten. The idea of building a monument at Olustee was the idea Mrs. J.N. Whitner, a member of the Martha Reid Chapter of United Daughters of the Confederacy in Jacksonville, Florida. Mrs. Whitners husband Joseph had fought at Olustee with the Florida Light Artillery, also known as Gambles Artillery. Mrs. Whitner had spent time with her husband touring the battlefield and was reported to have gone over every foot of it. While on a train going from Jacksonville to Lake City in 1896, she overheard two gentlemen discussing the battle as they passed Olustee. Both had fought on the Federal side but were confused as to the exact site of the battle. Mrs. Whitner was able to point out to them the exact location and informed them as to the troop locations. From this incident, Mrs. Whitner realized the need to mark the site of the battle while there were still veterans alive to point out the place. In her own words, Or else it should become buried in oblivion forever. Because she was a Southerner, this is where the suppressed history begins. No where in this State Park does it mention the Confederate troops murdered the wounded and captured African-American Union soldiers. the Daughters of the Confederacy and many other organizations as such have suppressed the truth and outright lied about the cruelty of the Confederacy on the battlefields of the Civil War to this very day. Today, the battlefield is commemorated by the Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park, a part of the Florida State Park system. This park is located within the Osceola National Forest, on U.S. 90. The actual battlefield consists of the state park, part of the national forest and privately held land. No monument representing the Union Army or its dead is on this site, I personally checked!.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 23:47:20 +0000
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